


Aspersions

by misura



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:11:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raffles on Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aspersions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



"My dear Bunny," Raffles said, gesturing expansively, "just consider. To look at the scene of a crime and deduce from what one finds there how the thing was done - why, that's simplicity itself. Anyone with eyes and some common sense might do that much, although I'll grant you common sense seems a somewhat uncommon commodity to come by these days, to our good fortune."

I kept silent, already regretting I had brought up the matter at all.

Raffles went on, undeterred by my silence, or perhaps taking it for encouragement. "To look at a perfectly ordinary place and spot a chance for a profitable crime, though - that takes a real knack. I tell you, anyone with half a brain can play the detective. But to play the criminal, and to play him well, that's the real stuff. You need pluck for that, and a good deal more besides."

There was, I admitted to myself, something to his argument. Besides, to solve a crime would hardly help with the rent - there was little money to be had in such an activity, and the enterprise seemed not wholly without danger either, for all that the profits were leaner.

"Of course, that's not to say I'd turn down a spot of detecting for a good cause," Raffles said. "To get a fellow behind bars or worse simply at your say-so, because you fingered him for something he thought he'd gotten away with nice and clean - why, that might be almost as good as having pulled off the thing yourself. I'm not speaking of the boodle here, you understand; _that_ would be all gone, I fear. Back to its rightful owners, or some such rot."

"Most likely," I agreed, not entirely able to keep a note of disappointment from creeping into my tone. For a brief moment, I had thought I might have hit upon something, an alternative to our current method of making a livelihood. It had, I now realized, been a foolish notion, brought on by reading accounts of events more likely to have sprung from the imagination of a more talented writer than I was myself, than to have any foundation in reality.

Raffles laughed, not unkindly. "Poor Bunny! Fancied yourself a glorious career as a private detective, did you? Your name in the paper, hailed as a hero. Mind, for a cover, you could do worse. Who'd suspect a man spending his spare time committing crimes of committing them himself?"

There was a gleam to his eyes that was all too clear a warning. Still, I was unable to help myself.

"Surely," I said, "you don't believe this to be the case with Sherlock Holmes?"

"As to that, who can say?" Raffles shrugged. I couldn't decide from his expression if the matter truly held no interest to him, or if he might know something more of the great detective than I, and had chosen not to share it. "All I'll say is that anyone taking a look at us is hardly going to suspect us of being one of the finest team of cracksmen ever to walk this earth. Appearances, dear Bunny. Elementary."


End file.
